LA Rush Update

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We race through the nearly final build. New hands-on impressions.

By Douglass C. Perry

The revisited racing classic known as LA Rush appeared in shining, speedy form at Midway's Chicago Gamers' Day. The nearly finished build didn't provide any new racing secrets, but the additional square footage of LA provided potentially interesting Rush-style jumps and shortcuts.

In addition to Hollywood, Downtown, and Beverly Hills, we drove through Santa Monica, Venice, LAX, Compton/Carson, the Fashion district, the Financial district, Little Tokyo, Long Beach and the Port of LA.

In case you hadn't played LA Rush before, this newfangled open-style racer isn't much like the Rush of yore. There are some shortcuts and significant jumps, but the wide-open design of the streaming city creates a different feel that's still hard to place. It definitely doesn't feel like the weighty, trickster-style cars of Rush 2049 and SF Rush, yet it's not a direct clone or copy of Midnight Club III or Need For Speed Underground 2.

The qualities it does possess are instantly noticeable, however. Featuring four different perspectives (three from behind the car and one in the cockpit), LA Rush offers a distinct set of dream vehicles, plus a slew of officially licensed cars with styled out exteriors. The busy streets and constant traffic provide a tension, distraction, and added element of opposition as you vie for mini-races, free races, and cash-prizes in the open city using obvious icons to set up races, buy cars, or forward the revenge-based storyline.

There is a distinct sense of speed, which is actually better than in any of the previous Rush games. The range of cars all provide different driving characteristics, including better or worse velocities, and each displaying a range of handling sensations. Most cars -- in fact, all of the ones we've played -- handle well. They're instantly responsive, quick to turn, accelerate, slow down, and recover. Speed boost icons litter the concrete landscape, so you can stack two or more to keep a constant boost going, and the camera zooms in as the car increases in speed.

The risk-reward of the speed bonuses are obviously the speed itself, and the literal rush you'll receive from them. The risk is crashing. The streets provide enough leeway to avoid most cars at a normal rate, but while boosting, the risk is easily tripled, and the cost of such a crash is one to three places in a four-car race. Still, it's clear that once you acquaint yourself with a course, it's just a matter of memorizing speed icons and shortcuts to nail first place regularly.

Finally, the full map system has been revealed and it's good. For those who've played Need For Speed Underground 2, this icon-based map system is similar but better. An indicator tells the exact distance from your goal, once set up in the map, and functions to get you from point A to point B consistently. The map itself is huge, and Midway opened up the full city for us, revealing a surprising amount of landscape, square mileage, and oodles of races, contests, and areas to explore. Also, unlike the empty but pretty landscapes of NFS2, LA Rush is filled with mini-game challenges, cops that'll chase you if prompted, and tons of secret ramps and shortcuts to explore.

LA Rush, in all honesty, shouldn't be called LA Rush at all, because it's very unlike the rest of the series. It should be called something like LA Rods, Hoods, whatever, just not Rush. However, if you're willing top give it a chance, there is a lot here to like.